Protesters Hoping Momentum Will Last

December 6, 1999|By STEVEN GREENHOUSE The New York Times

The surprisingly large protests in Seattle by critics of the World Trade Organization point to the emergence of a new and vocal coalition that will make it harder for the Clinton administration to move ahead with its plans for freer trade.

In addition, many Seattle protesters hope their movement will last longer than the Vietnam War movement because their target -- globalization -- is not a single issue that can be resolved by a peace treaty.

"We're really in it for the long haul on the trade issue," said John Sweeney, president of the AFL-CIO. "We've been working on building this coalition for a few years now, and we'll now put our heads together to see how we build on this."

Most of the more than 30,000 Seattle demonstrators were union members, environmentalists and college students, who wanted not to end globalization but to soften its harshest effects. Almost all were peaceful, and their large protest march and sit-ins were in sharp contrast to the 100 to 200 self-styled anarchists who turned Seattle into a battle zone by smashing windows and clashing with police.

Supporters of free trade fear that this new coalition against the trade group -- an amorphous but well-coordinated opposition that includes teamsters and tree huggers, textile workers and turtle devotees -- will be more effective in fighting free-trade efforts than the nation's one, long-standing foe of freer trade: the labor movement.

In the past, it was easy for lawmakers to discount labor's opposition to liberalizing trade because unions were often derided as self-serving protectionists. Labor largely led the fight against the North American Free Trade Agreement -- and lost. Since then, however, labor has learned the importance of forming coalitions and has reached out more to other groups.

It could prove much harder for Congress to ignore this new coalition because it contains a wide swath of Main Street America: not just steelworkers and auto workers, but anti-sweatshop protesters and members of church groups, the Sierra Club, Friends of the Earth and the Humane Society.

"I think this Seattle movement has legs," said Todd Gitlin, a New York University professor who has written on protest movements. "The issues that brought these people to Seattle are enduring issues. They are not the subject of a single egregious policy, like Vietnam. It's not just about the WTO -- it's about the dominance of huge corporate power over globalization."

Many trade experts say President Clinton was mindful of the new coalition's power, and the political damage it could do to Vice President Al Gore, when Washington's negotiators let the Seattle talks collapse rather than accept a bad deal. If the administration had left Seattle with a deal that the protesters hated, that would have reduced support for Gore from two of his traditional backers: labor and environmentalists.